2017

Derek Bridges lives in New Orleans, trading in words and pictures. A carpetbagger of long standing, he grew up in the top right corner of IL and later went to college in the middle cornfield part. He has also lived in MS and FL, for educational purposes only, and was diasporized for a time in TX.

He is the founder of bark, bugs, leaves, & lizardsB2L2. Here’s what he had in mind when he did that. For still further insight, see the Sloganza™, which he curates.

Randall Hicks is a former skating rink floor guard who lives as close to New Orleans as he possibly can. He has been teaching kids stuff for twenty years. His views are not his own, and do not reflect those of any employer, past or present. In fact, if you corner him, he will say this is all a frame-up, part of a vast [xxxxx]-wing conspiracy.

Gerald Cannongrowed up po and ignant in Alabama. Then he went off to college and became a socialistic atheistic business school grad with an MBA. Not wanting to add evil capitalistic bastard to his resume, he obtained an antidote degree–the MFA. What a difference a letter makes.

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Jimmy Gabacho is a professor at an Illinois university surrounded by cornfields south of I-80. Gabacho is a pseudonym designed to protect the writer from accountability. He has to eat. The word, “gabacho”– according to the Dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy—comes from the old Provençal word “gavach,” meaning a person from the foothills of the Pyrenees who spoke incorrectly. These days, it means “outsider,” somebody who just doesn’t fit in. One final note, if he is fortunate enough to have a reader or two, please read his posts as fiction. It may be tempting to assume that this information is autobiographical, and that some of these characters are or were real. However, please keep in mind if they were still alive or out of the penal system, they too would argue with my rendition of the facts. As a result, any resemblance between the characters that appear in his posts and those who are living (or dead or incarcerated) is an accident of fiction and is purely coincidental. Website: www.jimmygabacho.com

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Tom Long is one-third of the Chicago band The Ethyl Mermen. The name Tom Long can be found in the dictionary, Baseball Encyclopedia and a pub in Ireland. Tom Long is not affiliated with any other Tom Long; he won the rights to use his own name after prevailing in a three-way game of Jan-ken-pon by choosing “dynamite!” No Toms were harmed in the making of this blog. Band website, MySpace page, and go here to purchase/download.

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John Sheppard served four years in the United States Army as an Illustrator (MOS 81E). He was honorably discharged after Gulf War I. He went on to receive an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Florida, where he studied under Padgett Powell, Marjorie Sandor and Harry Crews. He has worked as a grill cook, web site designer, junk mail writer, small town newspaper editor and civil servant. He lives in Chicago.

His first novel, Small Town Punk, came out in 2007 with Ig Publishing. Tales of the Peacetime Army, his second novel, was published by Paragraph Line Books in 2008. His short stories have appeared in Air in the Paragraph Line, Bridge Magazine and Exquisite Corpse.

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Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss is one of the many aliases used by a Tom Long of Chicago, Illinois (not to be confused with other Tom Longs of Chicago or elsewhere). Tom was active in xerox zine culture from the late ’80s through the early ’00s under the Colicky Baby Records and Tapes imprint, and several examples of Tom’s mail art periodicals are filed deeply and safely away at the University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections Department in Iowa City and the Museum of Modern Art Library in New York City. Every so often he posts things at http://colicky.blogspot.com.

2010-2013

Intake assessment: Born and raised in Florida’s most depressed county, with its incumbant anti-intellectualism and protestant work ethic, AF is a 12-year resident of New Orleans. Overeducated, underemployed, and often disillusioned, she finds writing much easier when she is angry. An ENFP personality, she is prone to associate personal struggles with larger cultural influences. Initial diagnosis: Funk, amorphous.

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Non-Traditional Asset is a writer, provocateur, saboteur and survivor — schooled in the dark arts of investigative journalism, and crime reporting/fighting. He lives with his fiance on Earth and, despite evidence to the contrary, still believes in right, wrong and truth.

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Grant Bailieis the author of the novels Cloud 8 and Mortarville, as well as numerous stories online and in print. His latest novel, New Hope for Small Men, is available in e-book form under the auspices of Necessary Fiction where it was first serialized.

Mr. Bailie currently lives in Lakewood, Ohio, which is a stone’s throw from Cleveland. He knows this because sometimes the people in Cleveland throw stones.

Mark Folse published the Wet Bank Guide Katrina blog and the book Carry Me Home, a Journey Back to New Orleans on his move home to New Orleans after the Federal Flood. Mark is co-editor of A Howling in the Wires (2010) and a partner in Gallatin and Toulouse Press. He currently blogs on literary topics and “Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans” at ToulouseStreet.net. “There is no more powerful narrative of a place and its people since the Israelites left Egypt than the story of post-diluvian New Orleans and the hurricane coast.”

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Rebecca Fox is a graduate of Loyola University New Orleans, and a New Orleans native. She is the co-owner and co-founder of Storage Heroes, a company that buys repossessed storage units at public auction and resells the contents. When she’s not bidding on units in dresses and high heels or digging through the contents of units (still in dresses and high heels), she’s blogging about what she finds and the many adventures she has (garage sales are dangerous, y’all!). When she’s not doing THAT, she enjoys scavenger hunts, her puppy Lola, and cheering on the Saints (WHO DAT!).

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Albert Frankwas born to working class parents in the Chicago South-side neighborhood of the Jeffrey Manor. His home was located 11 blocks from the house where Richard Speck went on his nurse-killing rampage, and two miles from the city incinerator/dump. The cadmium and lead laced groundwater gave him the dual super-powers of drawing-ability and Multiple Sclerosis.

After leaving home at the age of 17 to attend Texas Tech University on a fine-arts scholarship, Al learned the meaning of this word you humans call “love”.

Al currently lives in Austin, TX with two hairless cats and fools people into thinking he is nothing more than a mild-mannered janitor.

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Ru Freeman is a Sri Lankan born author, who lives an interesting life on FB and at http://rufreeman.com/. Only the best of friends get to catch her unawares.

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Andrea Hewitt-Gibsonlives in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a former fourth-grade teacher, food stamp lady, polymer science grant writer, and spelling bee champion. When she grows up, she hopes to become either a librarian or a marathon runner.

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Bob Hudsonis the founder and leading figure of the Contemporary Integrationist Movement. He lives and works in Jackson, Mississippi, where he makes more people uneasy with each passing day.

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Francis Illington lives and works in a small city of little importance two hours south of Chicago.

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Sam Jasper is currently waging a largely silent war against gravity and gravitas. It’s a delicate balance. Sam is co-editor of A Howling in the Wires (2010) and a partner in Gallatin and Toulouse Press. She was a contributor to Pelican Press’ Louisiana in Words (2007), and reprised her contributor role in the Chin Music Press’ Where We Know (2010). Sam also erratically maintains a blog called New Orleans Slate (named not after the online mag but the roofing tiles of old buildings and the primary school chalkboard on which the nun’s pointer hung) and has a collection of letters written immediately after Katrina at the Katrina Refrigerator blog. Sam is also a regular contributor at the Back of Town blog.

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Kefuoe (which means gift in Sotho) was given her name while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Lesotho. Since that time, she’s lived in Kenya and Guyana, but she always comes home to New Orleans eventually. She currently lives in London, where she splits her time between supporting international women’s health programs and trying to stay warm.

Lynette Ledoux likes to cook, eat, drink, write, exercise, take pictures, look at pictures, and hang (pictures and out). She lives in New Orleans.

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Christopher Lirette, from Chauvin, Louisiana, has worked as an archery instructor, an offshore roustabout, a personal chef, and a lecturer at Cornell University. He is moving to Atlanta. You can find his writing online and in print journals. His website, christopherlirette.com, has many links. He practices Hung Ga, a southern Shaolin kung fu system. You can follow him on Twitter under his username CLImagiste.

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Heather Madd is a freelance designer and writer in the Chicago suburbs. She loves her family, fashion, paganism, animals, justice and all things geeky. She has high hopes of publishing her novels and someday selling her paintings on Etsy. She’s currently on a spiritual journey to find the perfect job and not go completely broke (or crazy)

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Maitri Erwin is a geoscientist, author of Maitri’s VatulBlog, publisher of the Back Of Town blog and adviser to Project Gutenberg, the oldest producer of free electronic books. Maitri was born in Kuwait to Indian parents, has lived in the American Upper Midwest and New Orleans and now makes her home in Houston. Contact: email / @maitri

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Gary Mays is a veteran freelance writer, editor and investigative reporter who has worked for The Chicago Tribune, The Wisconsin (Madison) State Journal, and other, smaller but no-less- important publications.

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Chris Mencken Bostick, or menckles, is a native of Baltimore, and attended UMBC, graduating with a degree in English and Creative Writing. After working as a writer for state agencies, national non-profits and a campaign for U.S. Senate, she moved to New Orleans in 2006 to marry a surly old curmudgeon who made her the happiest woman it is possible for a woman like her to be. Since moving here, she has worked primarily as a massage therapist because the money was better than working in local politics; her stomach had also gotten a bit sour on the political machine. She has come here to B2L2, because, deep down, she always thought maybe she had something to say. So, we’ll see, now, won’t we?

Kim Pereira is a Professor of Theatre and Honors Director at Illinois State University. He dabbles in African-American theatre and Shakespeare. Acting and Directing are some other things he does. Originally from India, he wanders the cornfields of Central Illinois looking for a way out. Theatre is one way…writing another! Kimpertinence at kimpereira.com

Sophia is an artist. She designs books and handfans. And she rides her bike really fast with no training wheels.

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TomT will be posting under his real name here (at least part of it), in spite of the fact that this site already seems to be crammed-full of Toms. He is a suburban husband and dad doing Union work within public education in the Chicago area. Once in a great while he also posts diaries under the name “Skitters” on Daily Kos, and—during football season—he does his best to chronicle the dark history of a fairly-vicious fantasy league. He also writes a blog called Skundered.

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Kevin Woodson is the kind of artist who isn’t easy to keep track of — he’s either wearing ties and creating corporate artwork for bigshot executives to use when they talk about really complicated things, OR he’s drooling and laughing manically, writing comic books in a corner somewhere. And everything in between. Jeesh! It can really confuse folks on the plane who try to look over Kevin’s shoulder to see what he’s doing. Especially when he turns to them, picks his nose, and starts drawing imaginative caricatures of them in compromising positions.

Seriously. Regarding Kevin’s work here, The King of Kook is a comic strip derived from a children’s book idea that popped into his head several years ago. On second thought, might not be entirely appropriate for children. Without publishing that book, Kevin is content to keep drawing these strips here, and happy if ya read ‘em. Kevin is also happy that, after dusting off and re-reading some already-printed King of Kook strips he did a couple of years ago, he doesn’t get the joke any more than you do. So if you read these strips and don’t exactly fully get it, don’t come running to Kevin. He’s certainly not going to be any help.

Kevin lives in Oakland CA and likes the color blue. Find out more than you ever wanted to know by going to his webpage: www.kevinwoodson.com, or by just friending him on facebook.